“I know I’m safe but my body doesn’t!” Megan McKenna is coping with PTSD and sleep paralysis

Fearne Cotton (0:01)

Hello, and welcome to Happy Place with me. I'm Fearne Cotton. How are you doing? Shall we go back and experience some more summer magic at the Happy Place Festival? I think we should. Today, I'm chatting to Megan McKenna.

Megan McKenna (0:13)

Do you know what? I was kind of riding with that stigma of Mental Megan. Like, that was my nickname. It was like Mental Megan. At one point, there was an advert of me in a stray jacket. You know, I had a brand off the back of it. I had my book called Malfi. I had a lip gloss line called Malfi. I was like, cool, I'm Malfi, you know.

That's it. It was making me money. Honestly, I was like living my best life. Then I was like, do you know what? I'm a bit fed up with everyone thinking I'm this angry girl because I'm not.

Fearne Cotton (0:41)

So Megan McKenna arrived at the Happy Place Festival, seriously multi-skilling. She brought her little toddler along, who is the sweetest little kid. If you follow Megan on Instagram, you will have seen her making cookies and cakes and all sorts with her little boy, Landon. He's so cute. But my god, first of all, I was like, I forgot how hectic it is having a toddler. At one point, he just ran into the woodland to never be seen again. I was like, oh my, I forgot. I forgot you have to stare at toddlers. I've got big kids now who actually I'm pleased to get up and move. But toddlers don't stop moving, they're just running back and forth. Also, it took me back to those days where you're trying to juggle anything and have a toddler, like having a conversation with someone, let alone going on stage to do a podcast. So massive hats off to Megan for managing the juggle of bringing her kid to the festival. I actually brought my kids to the Happy Place Festival in London.

My kids are at a good age now, they're 11 and 13, and they just wandered off. Then at some point, my 13-year-old was like, he's going through a phase at the moment of calling me sister. He's like, sister, I wanna go home. And I'm like, okay, cool, bye. And he left. And that was that. Yeah, I'm getting called sister. I don't know what's going on there, very odd.

Now, as you can see from Megan's Instagram, having a child has changed so much for her, her approach to life. So we talked through all the big moments of her adulthood from being known as Mouthy Megan on reality TV to making beautiful country music and really gorgeous recipe content on her social. She's got cookbooks out too. She's poured all of that passion for food into her latest cookbook, Love Gluten Free. And there have been a number of really difficult experiences in her life too, which I really appreciated her telling all of us in that talk tent about her relationship with alcohol, getting social anxiety and something that's really stayed with me because I could, it was like palpable in the air, talking about this awful robbery experience that she went through and how it's still massively affecting her today. Like it breaks my heart.

Right, let's do it. This is the show.

How are you lovely Megan?

Megan McKenna (3:24)

I am very, very good. Good. How are you?

Fearne Cotton (3:27)

I'm really good. Welcome to Happy Place Festival. It's our lovely gang here, our lovely crowd.

Megan McKenna (3:32)

This is lovely. So nice.

Fearne Cotton (3:33)

It's so lovely. So you are partly in the UK, partly in Germany. Where have you come from today?

Megan McKenna (3:40)

The UK. I'm back and forth a lot like a yo-yo, but it's just kind of become my norm. It's just part of my daily life now, traveling.

Fearne Cotton (3:48)

Are you okay with that?

Megan McKenna (3:50)

Yeah. I mean, it could be a little easier with a baby, obviously, you know.

But he's good on the plane. He's kind of, he's used to it. He likes the airport. He loves planes. He wants plane toys now. It's all a thing. So I'm like, cool, let's go with it. I'm happy.

Fearne Cotton (4:05)

I still love an airport. There's something about turning up to Terminal 5 that makes me unbelievably thrilled.

Megan McKenna (4:13)

I love all of it.

Fearne Cotton (4:13)

I'm going to pop to Boots, get my little bits and bobs, get a little magazine from Smiths. Heaven. But the worst bit when you've got, because how old's London now? Nearly two.

Why do we still have to put buggies through the conveyor belt bit for security?